The Saudi Peace Plan
Later this month the Arab league will be meeting in Saudi Arabia to discuss a new peace offer with Israel. The Arab league met once before in Beirut in 2002 and made a proposal to Israel with these basic guidelines:
A complete withdrawl to pre-1967 borders.
The creation of a Palestinian state
East Jerusalem as an Arab Palestinian capital
Normalization of economic and diplomatic ties with Israel from all Arab countries
A "just solution" to the refugee problem in accordance with resolution 194 (right of return)
Israeli officials have called this proposal a "positve move" by the Arab world, but came just short of accepting it. The Israelis rejected this proposal for one simple reason: the clause calling for Israel to accept the right of return. While the first four terms of this proposal are reasonable, Israel should and must reject the last item. The right of return is based on the false assumption that the Zionist forcibly expelled the Arabs living in pre-state Israel. If Israel were to accept the right of return, they will effectively be admitting to a crime they did not commit. Aside from this, Israel must reject the right of return in order to preserve their demographic identity.

The peace conference to be held later this month is supposedly intended to improve the peace offer to end the Israeli-Arab conflict and establish peace with Israel. However, it seems unlikely that the Arab league will modify the proposal to one that is acceptable for Israel. The Arabs want the Palestinian refugees to return to Israel to get them out of their respective countries. Another motivation for the Arab League to push for the right of return is because they know that Israel cannot accept this term because if even half of the 4 million refugees return, Israel wont be Israel anymore. The Arabs know that Israel will reject the right of return clause no matter what. Therefore, the motivation of the Arab league to offer this proposal is to show the rest of the world that the Arabs are trying to make peace and it is Israel that is rejecting it.

The undisputable fact is that Israel would accept the Saudi proposal in less than 10 seconds if the right of return clause was dropped. It has always been Israeli policy to trade land for peace. In fact Israel didn't begin to build settlements on occupied land until years after 1967, when it became clear the Arab nations were unwilling to make peace at the time. Israel did withdraw from the Sanai without any hesitation in 1979 as part of a peace deal with Egypt. Israel has made it clear in previous years that they would seriously consider withdrawing from the Golan in return for peace with Syria. Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip in 2005 as a goodwill gesture, hoping it would be the first step towards peace with the Palestinians (although this didn't seem to happen). The Olmert administration has hinted it would dismantle many West Bank settlements in return for peace with the Palestinians (although Olmert shelved that plan in response to the summer 2006 abduction of Shalit by Palestinian militants). Although Israel can anticipate severe internal opposition to any planned pullout from East Jerusalem, they would have no problems adhering to the first four conditions set forth by the Arab league. And the Arabs know this. That's why it is very unlikely they will remove the provocative clause for the right of return in their revised peace offer.